Crazy woman fakes rapes on train

[snopes]

Comment: I have come across a story about a woman on an English Train who
sits in empty compartments with a gentleman and then rips at her clothing
and assaults herself. She then calls for the conductor who gets the
police. After the man has killed himself because of the horror of what is
happening it turns out she is crazy and has done this before. It
supposedly happens in the sixties, it is quoted in an Australian Court
case by the judge as a reason why rape allegations should not always be
believed. Is this a legend?

Must... not... make the joke....

Oh, fine.

"That's it! I've had it with these mothaNFBSKin' rapes on this mothaNFBSKin' train!"



I'm going to go hide in shame now...

[Pseudo_Croat]

Call me naive, but how in the world do you assault yourself? Doesn't assault need at least two people?

- Pseudo "assault and pepper" Croat

[Morrigan]

You can assault yourself. (Legal or not, I'm not sure.) Try hitting yourself. You can do it hard enough to bruise. If another person hit you that hard, that would be considered assault, right?

Morrigan

[Nonny Mouse]

Originally Posted by Pseudo_Croat

Call me naive, but how in the world do you assault yourself? Doesn't assault need at least two people?

- Pseudo "assault and pepper" Croat

You're naive.

I don't know the answer to your question, I just felt compelled to make the obvious lame joke.

Nonny

[Eddylizard]

Call me naive, but how in the world do you assault yourself? Doesn't assault need at least two people?

Although I think the story is cobblers, I suspect "assaults herself" is not a strict legal definition, rather that she inflicts wounds and bruises on herself then makes out that the other passenger did it. Scratch your face, throw yourself against the wall. Get creative.

I know your going to say that is a false claim of battery, not assault but in colloquial terms, rhe two are often misused.

ETA Spanked by Morrigan

[Morrigan]

The way I understood it, was assault was verbal and battery was the physical. (Of course, I'm probably wrong...)

Morrigan

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Morrigan

The way I understood it, was assault was verbal and battery was the physical. (Of course, I'm probably wrong...)

Morrigan

Correct in the strict legal sense, but here (where the supposed string of incidents occured) the popular press do not make a distinction. One frequently reads of assaults occurring in news stories, in which the victim was harmed physically - they are never reported as batteries. I suspect that the commenter is not a legal beagle, since they cannot cite either the British or Australian case.

[babyshoes]

Originally Posted by snopes

I have come across a story about a woman on an English Train who
sits in empty compartments with a gentleman and then rips at her clothing
and assaults herself.

How can the compartment be empty if there are two people in it?
And the man always kills himself?

[Muadan]

Originally Posted by Pseudo_Croat

Call me naive, but how in the world do you assault yourself? Doesn't assault need at least two people?

- Pseudo "assault and pepper" Croat

Watch Liar Liar with Jim Carrey. Pretty good example of how to assault yourself there.

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by Eddylizard

Correct in the strict legal sense, but here (where the supposed string of incidents occured) the popular press do not make a distinction. One frequently reads of assaults occurring in news stories, in which the victim was harmed physically - they are never reported as batteries. I suspect that the commenter is not a legal beagle, since they cannot cite either the British or Australian case.

Thanks, Eddylizard.

That's what made me wonder-I never read the paper and see the word "battery." It's always just assault.

Morrigan

[Morrigan]

Originally Posted by Muadan

Watch Liar Liar with Jim Carrey. Pretty good example of how to assault yourself there.

Which I pointed out in my first post. Hitting yourself.

Morrigan

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by babyshoes

How can the compartment be empty if there are two people in it?
And the man always kills himself?

Isn't that analysing the commenters use of language to the nth degree. Okay, she sits in an otherwise empty carriage.

It only says that this particular fellow killed himself. The previous fellows might not have done.

However we do not have 'conductors' on trains - well we do, but those are the shoes or pantographs that carry electricity from the third rail or overhead wire (depending on where you live) to the train. We have 'guards' which makes the story sound off.

[Troberg]

Watch Liar Liar with Jim Carrey. Pretty good example of how to assault yourself there.

Or Fight Club.

[Little Pink Pill]

Originally Posted by Pseudo_Croat

Call me naive, but how in the world do you assault yourself? Doesn't assault need at least two people?

- Pseudo "assault and pepper" Croat

Here's an example.*

A bored pediatrician from Redlands, Calif., admitted he faked
his own attempted murder, including inserting a spent bullet
into his abdomen and burning his penis to fake a sexual attack.
The doctor burned and bruised his skin with a grinding tool,
anesthetized his head and abdomen and jammed a rod into those
areas to simulate being shot and then pushed a spent .32-
caliber projectile into his stomach. After that he burned
himself to make it appear he'd been sodomized with a flaming
object. Then he injected himself with Demerol, bound his own
legs, wrists and neck and lay down on the sidewalk, where
police found him unconscious and injured.

*I'm not sure about the veracity of this site, but I found it googling for this specific case from my home town. My parents knew him. His name was Dr. Anderson.

[Judecat]

And the man would stay in the train compartment with a obviously deranged woman after she starts hitting herself. Any sane man would be running through the corridors screaming for the guards. (I've never been on a train that had compartments like those I see in movies -- even the German trains are open cars with no walls between the sets of seats.)

And, at least in this country -- when you report a rape, you are sent to a hospital to be checked for physical evidence of having had sex.

[Eddylizard]

We did used to have railway carriages in the south-east region whch were divided into compartments each of two rows of facing seats divided by solid walls. The only way in or out of the compartments was through the side or platform doors, and obviously for the sensible at least, only when the train was at a halt. There was no way to move to a different part of the train, except when it stopped at a station, then detrain and retrain.

These were withdrawn in the 1980's after a real life rape case which is a bit like the OP. The man raped the woman in such a compartment, then got off at the next stop. She was too traumatised to do anything until a few stops later.

Some of the details do mirror the case in the OP, however the woman in this case was actally raped, so it could hardly be cited as an example of a false rape claim.

Originally Posted by Troberg

Or Fight Club.

Great scene

On a totally different "track" I did know of a young lady who repeatedly had men charged with raping or sexually assaulting her, a dozen times at least. Usually to ex boyfriends who had jilted her or young men who had turned her down.

Though she never harmed herself to make the allegations look any better to the police, prosecutors ect.

[Don Enrico]

Originally Posted by Judecat

(...) -- even the German trains are open cars with no walls between the sets of seats.)

Why "even"? Is there a common knowledge about Germany having special kinds of train cars that I'm not aware of?

Don Enrico

[Ramblin' Dave]

Originally Posted by Judecat

(I've never been on a train that had compartments like those I see in movies -

Some trains in France and Spain have closed compartments, although you can move from one car to another. (Just not very comfortably, as the walking space outside the compartments is pretty narrow.)